By Hilmy Ahamed –

In post-war Sri Lanka, few figures embody the volatile convergence of ethno-religious extremism, political patronage, and systematic intimidation as starkly as Ven. Galagoda Atte Gnanasara Thera. As the General Secretary and public face of the ultra-nationalist Bodu Bala Sena (BBS—Buddhist Power Force), Gnanasara Thera emerged in the early 2010s not as a traditional monastic scholar, but as the chief architect of a militant majoritarianism that reshaped the island’s social and political landscape. Operating in the shadow of the 2009 civil war victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), his movement systematically pivoted the state’s security apparatus and public anxieties away from Tamil separatism and toward the deliberate demonization of religious minorities—most notably Muslims and evangelical Christians.

At the core of Gnanasara Thera’s campaign was a deeply entrenched racist ideology disguised as cultural self-defense. Grounded in the Mahavamsa narrative of Sri Lanka as the sacred home of Theravada Buddhism (Dhammadipa), he framed the Sinhala-Buddhist majority—who comprise roughly 70 percent of the island’s population—as an imperiled civilization. In his public rallies and press conferences, he routinely portrayed Sri Lanka’s Muslim community (approximately 10 percent of the population) not as fellow citizens, but as an existential demographic, economic, and cultural threat backed by global Islamic finance.

This rhetoric was weaponized through targeted campaigns designed to marginalize minorities from civic and economic life. Under Gnanasara Thera’s leadership, the BBS spearheaded aggressive boycotts against Muslim-owned commercial enterprises, targeted the traditional Halal certification framework, demanded the dismantling of Islamic personal laws (Quazi courts), and protested against traditional attire like the Abaya and Niqab. By stoking lower-middle-class Sinhala economic grievances and converting them into anti-Muslim sentiment, Gnanasara Thera built a formidable populist base that operated with apparent impunity.

The consequences of this rhetoric were devastatingly physical. Inflammatory speeches delivered by Gnanasara Thera served as direct catalysts for widespread communal violence. In June 2014, following a highly provocative address by Gnanasara Thera in Aluthgama—where he warned that Sinhalese Buddhists would take the law into their own hands—armed mobs swept through Muslim neighborhoods in Aluthgama, Beruwala, and Dharga Town. The resulting pogrom left four dead, over 80 injured, thousands displaced, and dozens of homes, businesses, and mosques destroyed. Similar patterns of majoritarian mobilization fueled subsequent communal clashes in Digana and Ampara in 2018, as well as the post-Easter Sunday attacks in 2019.

Equally pernicious was Gnanasara Thera’s campaign against internal dissent. Recognizing that his majoritarian project required total ideological conformity within the Sinhala community, he waged a relentless campaign of intimidation against non-governmental organizations (NGOs), human rights defenders, peace activists, and moderate Buddhist monks. Civil society organizations advocating for post-war transitional justice and interfaith reconciliation were routinely vilified as “dollar-funded traitors” and foreign agents attempting to weaken the nation.

Gnanasara Thera’s mobs frequently executed physical raids to silence dialogue. In April 2014, he led a crowd that forcibly stormed a Colombo press conference held by civil society groups addressing enforced disappearances. Even the monastic order (Sangha) was subjected to his violence: moderate monks who preached non-violence or engaged in interfaith initiatives were branded “traitors in robes.” In March 2014, Gnanasara Thera physically raided a press conference hosted by Ven. Watareka Vijitha Thera—a monk advocating for Muslim-Buddhist harmony—verbally and physically assaulting him in public view.

For nearly a decade, Gnanasara Thera operated under an implicit shield of state protection, benefiting from close ties to powerful political figures within successive majoritarian administrations. However, his tactics did not merely target minority populations; they increasingly collided with the formal institutions of the Sri Lankan state, laying the groundwork for an open assault on the country’s legal system and judicial authority.

Contempt of Court, Institutional Defiance, and the Limits of Majoritarian Impunity

While the Bodu Bala Sena’s (BBS) campaign of anti-minority rhetoric brought Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera to national prominence, his political trajectory was equally defined by a systematic assault on the legal foundations of the Sri Lankan state. Operating under the assumption that his monastic robes and political connections afforded him total immunity, Gnanasara Thera routinely challenged law enforcement, obstructed police investigations, and subjected judicial processes to open ridicule. This pattern of institutional defiance eventually brought him into direct confrontation with the judiciary, turning his legal battles into a landmark test of Sri Lanka’s rule of law.

The defining crisis occurred in January 2016 during legal proceedings at the Homagama Magistrate’s Court regarding the 2010 state-linked disappearance of journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda. Gnanasara Thera stormed the courtroom, interrupted proceedings, verbally abused the magistrate and state counsel, and threatened Sandya Eknaligoda, the journalist’s widow. Denouncing the court for remanding military intelligence officers whom he termed “war heroes,” he publicly dismissed the judiciary as an instrument of “Englishman’s law.” The magistrate referred his conduct to the Court of Appeal for criminal contempt.

In August 2018, the Court of Appeal found Gnanasara Thera guilty on four counts of contempt of court, delivering a historic ruling that sentenced him to six years of rigorous imprisonment. The Supreme Court subsequently upheld the judgment, emphasizing that his disruptive conduct posed a severe threat to the authority and dignity of the administration of justice. The conviction marked the first time the state formally held him accountable for his lawlessness, shattering his aura of legal invincibility.

However, the political establishment quickly stepped in to undermine the judiciary’s decision. In May 2019—just nine months into Gnanasara Thera’s six-year sentence and amidst heightened ethno-religious tensions following the Easter Sunday bombings—outgoing President Maithripala Sirisena granted him a full presidential pardon. Civil rights groups, legal scholars, and human rights organizations strongly condemned the act as an arbitrary exercise of executive power that subverted judicial independence and reinforced a dangerous precedent of selective immunity for Sinhala-nationalist figures.

Following his release, Gnanasara Thera was re-integrated into the state apparatus. In October 2021, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed him to chair the controversial Presidential Task Force on “One Country, One Law”. The appointment backfired, provoking widespread outrage from legal bodies, civil society, and minority political representatives who viewed assigning a convicted hate-speech proponent to draft legal reform as a mockery of justice.

The ultimate collapse of his impunity was catalyzed by the 2022 Aragalaya (“The Struggle”) movement. The catastrophic economic crisis united Sri Lankans across ethnic lines against government corruption, dismantling the majoritarian narrative that had long sustained the BBS. With the political collapse of his patrons, the courts moved to enforce accountability. In March 2024, the Colombo High Court sentenced Gnanasara Thera to four years of rigorous imprisonment for hate speech delivered against Islam in 2016.

The final judicial reckoning arrived in September 2026, when the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment declaring President Sirisena’s 2019 presidential pardon unconstitutional and legally void, establishing that executive pardons remain subject to judicial review. Consequently, in October 2026, the Court of Appeal ordered his immediate return to custody to serve out the remainder of his original six-year prison term for contempt of court.

Gnanasara Thera’s long arc—from unchecked majoritarian agitation and courtroom intimidation to executive pardon and ultimate re-imprisonment—stands as a powerful precedent in Sri Lankan constitutional history. His trajectory demonstrates that while ethno-nationalism and state patronage can temporarily shield actors from accountability, the institutional restoration of judicial independence remains indispensable to upholding the rule of law in a multi-ethnic society.